[Fineus]

Birthdays are coming closer, money is beginning to be less of a problem. My GF2 can't run GTA3 as fast without slow down and I want something cutting edge once again.

So - what to go for? The good old GeForce4 Ti4600?

It's got to be a gaming card, able to chuck things around quickly and effectively - future proof for at least the next 3 years is a bonus.

And I don't want this degrading into an ATI versus nVidia or an "nVidia cards suck" thread. If your going to debate on which card is the better you must back yourself up with facts that aid me with my choice, or else the point of the thread is lost.

With that in mind - whats the answer to my problem?

[Ryx]

I'd go with the best gf4 I could afford, but I'm not upgrading now.
Personally I'll hold out to dec/jan. hopefully Nvidia and ATI will come out with something new by then. Also Matrox's G1000(?) and 3DLabs/Creative P10(?) could be interesting (should be out this x-mas apperently). Of course how these hold up for gaming's anyones guess.

[wEvil]

3Dlabs will be releasing the "pro" version of the P10 VPU by the beginning of August I'd reckon.

This card will probably be the Oxygen 2 7200 or something hard to remember like that.

Matrox's "Parhelia 512" will be out...no idea.

Both will probably offer similar levels of performance and feature sets.

These cards will probably not be hugely expensive (well..the 3dlabs one will but then again it will probably provide way better image quality than the creative/desktop geared one)

I wouldn't go for a Geforce-powered board.  Most of those non-programmable boards will face block obsolescence by the time Microsoft releases DX9 and the longhorn OS.

[Thorn]

Radeons arent half bad.. better than the GF line imho..

[Martinus]

Originally posted by Thorn
Radeons arent half bad.. better than the GF line imho..

Really? I thought it was generally accepted that GF4 cards were the business as far as gaming goes. I was considering getting a GF4mx card.

[Thorn]

I've used em both...
I like the Radeon better... image just seems crisper to me....

[Shrike]

Originally posted by Maeglamor
Really? I thought it was generally accepted that GF4 cards were the business as far as gaming goes. I was considering getting a GF4mx card.

As you probably know, the mx is basically an updated GF2.  Unless you have cash flow probs, go for a ti.

[Liberator]

Originally posted by Maeglamor


Really? I thought it was generally accepted that GF4 cards were the business as far as gaming goes. I was considering getting a GF4mx card.

I just got a GF4mx 420 PCI.  Would have gotten a 460 except my AGP is down on the Mobo and I don't have a AGP slot.

On the whole a good card, better that my old Voodoo3 2000.

The whole GF4mx line has nothing to do with the GF4ti line other than name.  Essentially the GF4mx is a suped up GF2mx with an integrated FSAA engine.  So if you want TOL performance go with a GF4ti

For the full skinny on performance go here and here .

[Martinus]

Hmmm, this actually does sound familiar, a friend told me that the GF4mx was little more than an overclocked GF2.

A GF3ti sounds like my cup of tea then

[Grey Wolf]

A 16MB TNT2 64 :lowers head in shame:
And I probably won't get a better one until I graduate from HS in ~3 years and get my own comp (Graduation present!)

[CP5670]

I have a standard Geforce3 card so I am probably going to just bypass the GF4 generation and wait for the next line. However, if the two upcoming Unreal games don't run too well, I will move to a 4600. I have been hearing good things about the 4200 version from a price/performance point of view - they say it is almost as fast as the two higher clocked versions but price comparatively to the much inferior MX versions. (not sure if it has been released yet or not, though)

[Nico]

I'm very happy with my radeon, and it's only a 32mb ( needed the all in wonder version ), so if you get a 64mb, would be a great deal I think. shouldn't be too expensive now, which is quite a good point.

[Razor]

Hey this is evil. You stickify every single admin topic. That's not fair you know!

[Fineus]

A perk of being the admin is you can bring topics to peoples attention more easily by sticking them for a faster answer. That's something I don't need to apologise for

Anyways, thanks to everyone for the input so far... I'm not torn between a few things:

1 - Waiting for the generation after the GF4 line to fully develop itself. However this will take time... up to half a year, which is a major con from my point of view.

2 - Getting a Voodoo4 or 5 for 3DFX games, I've not played Wing Commander Prophecy for some time because of this - it's just a case of finding the card. However this has little to do with the topic of the best new graphics cards...

3 - Buy a Radeon, although I'm aprehensive of this. Whilst I value looks - if it comes at the cost of a large amount of performance alongside the latest GF4 line then it's a big turn off. The report in PC Zones hardware section has the nVidias latest and greatest labelled as the ultimate for speed and looks. Although I have heard several reports that the GF line in general sacrifices looks over speed. But if that speed is that much more - I'm willing to make that call. Theres no point playing a game that looks incredible if it runs at 10FPS.

4 - Finally, buy a GF4 card. I've already decided I wouldn't touch the MX line at all - if I'm going to upgrade a card I might as well spend the money and make it a really good upgrade. However if the line after[/] GF4 is that much better then I could consider waiting untill it's released. But it'd have to be a really worth-while wait... including DX9 compatable and so on...

Oh and I forgot to mention, dual monitor (well, one monitor and one TV) support is a real bonus.

[wEvil]

Intel and Nvidia both own shares in Dennis publishing, PCZ's parent company.

Don't trust a word of their reviews, go somewhere more reputable like ars technica or aces' hardware.
(NOT THG or Anandtech..both of them have said some very screwy things)

[Nico]

Well, as I said, even with monster games resources-wise, my radeon on an athlon 900mhz always did fine.

[Razor]

OK then Thunder. If you say so, I can just the topic the whole time untill I get attention that it deserves.

Cool! Well I am no admin, but I still can do something to get attention for my topics.

[Vertigo1]

Wait for teh nv30 if you can.  Its gonna be HELLA fast, and for you 3dfx fanatics...IT HAS GLIDE SUPPORT!  They didn't hire all of those ex-3dfx engineers to sit on their hands ya know.

I'd post full specs for the nv30 (Geforce 5), but the server is on has been down since Thursday of last week.

[Kellan]

Originally posted by wEvil
Intel and Nvidia both own shares in Dennis publishing, PCZ's parent company.

Hmmm...interesting...

Thanks, wEvil. Fortunately I can't be bothered to pay for PCZ or PCG, and nick all my information from the internet. Thanks for the links...though I have a 1.4Ghz Athlon and 384MB RAM, I think the 3D card is letting it down on some games - GTA 3 coming to mind.

It's a 64MB Geforce2 MX, IIRC.

[Fineus]

Originally posted by MD-2389
Wait for teh nv30 if you can.  Its gonna be HELLA fast, and for you 3dfx fanatics...IT HAS GLIDE SUPPORT!  They didn't hire all of those ex-3dfx engineers to sit on their hands ya know.

I'd post full specs for the nv30 (Geforce 5), but the server is on has been down since Thursday of last week.

Wow, you actually did something useful for once!

This is certainly interesting/great news. It would negate the need for a seperate Voodoo5 card... if only I could get one with dual monitor support - it certanly sounds like a hefty beast... any details you can get together would be great!

And Razor, bumping to much leads to topic closure. Don't do it